Email – the “new” hot channel

Last weekend, Christopher Mims – tech columnist for the Wall Street Journal – wrote a piece about the rediscovered love for email.

In this #deletefacebook era, communicating by email has become a way of hitting back at the algorithms that try to prescribe what people get to see. Email grants authors an intimate connection with readers, allows brands to address their most loyal customers and enables up-and-coming startups to build up armies of influencers. At the same time, Mims goes on to say, the direct access to the unsubscribe button is a good thing for all concerned, as it encourages creators of content to provide more authentic, high quality experiences.

Asked whether he would rather have a mailing list with 1,000 recipients or 100,000 Twitter followers, Wales-based jeans retailer David Hieatt responded: “If you ask me, I’d take the 1,000 emails all day long, because the business you get from 1,000 emails will be much more than you get from 100,000 people on Twitter or Instagram.” And don’t forget – with email the distribution list belongs to the company. Also in email’s favor, according to Mims is the fact that it’s one of the few open standards we still have left, and that it’s somewhat hesitant about trackers undermining privacy. Last, but not least, the asynchronous nature of email is ideally suited to putting the brakes on our smart phones, which otherwise constantly demand our attention.

One can’t really talk about a renaissance in email, says Sara Radicati, chief executive at market research firm the Radicati Group. Email has actually never stopped increasing in volume and importance (Radicati estimates that a record volume of 281 billion emails were sent each day in 2018). As a result, it is not only giants such as Adobe, IBM or Oracle that have been handling mind-boggling volumes of email for marketing and other communication purposes, but also medium-sized tech companies that are specializing in the handling of emails.

The corresponding service at Retarus is called “Email for Applications”. It enables you to send large volumes of email directly from your business applications via Retarus’ Global Delivery Network – at peak times up to 10 million emails per hour, contractually assured by means of Service Level Agreements. Your business applications can either be connected via a modern REST/JSON API or directly via SMTP, as you require. Further details about Retarus Email for Applications can be obtained on our website or directly from your local Retarus representative.